Does anyone else find it hard to read coding tutorials?

Posted by R4_Bluesoul@reddit | learnprogramming | View on Reddit | 7 comments

When I am working on a personal project or trying to solve a coding problem, I get super focused and enjoy the process of experimenting, building and seeing immediate results whether its a fail or pass.

But when I need to sharpen my skills and learn new stuff, I find it super hard to read through coding tutorials from like an online course or even something like freecodecamp. I read one page, watch a narrated video etc get exhausted, bored, tired and quit.

I don't know if I have ADHD or if my attention span is now weak, usually I would push through with coffee but now I drink decaf as coffee is no longer good for my health.

Has anyone else experienced this?

[-]

EfficientMongoose317@reddit

Yeah, same tbh. Tutorials feel slow because you’re passive, but building feels good because you’re actually doing something.

What helped me was switching to:

learn just enough → immediately build something small
skip long courses, use them only when you’re stuck
set tiny goals (like “just get this api working” instead of “learn backend”)

Also, don’t force long sessions. even 30–40 mins of focused building > hours of half-focused tutorials. nothing wrong with you, it’s just how most people learn better.

[-]

UnburyingBeetle@reddit

My brain shuts down even from trying to read a "for dummies" book on coding. I probably need a tutorial aimed at third graders.

[-]

peterlinddk@reddit

You are certainly not alone - you bring up freecodecamp, and they are among some of the worst of these kind of "tutorials" that just list up an endless series of facts about the topic, and then ask you to click on multiple choice questions to answer what you just read, or write a single line of code that does what you just read. It is incredibly boring, and studies have shown that almost no knowledge is retained by learners ... ADHD or not.

Everyone has their own preferred way of learning, but I've found that what always seem to work best, is if you build something, and then learn what you need, in order to build that. I often start with watching or reading a tutorial, and then I get bored, but rather than quit, I just try to start my own project doing sort of the same thing that the tutorial tried. I guess how to do things, and then look back in the course when I get stuck, to see if there is something to help me. Basically thinking of the course like a book of recipes that I can pick and choose from, rather than a story that I must follow from beginning to end.

[-]